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Background Information

Research Question: For all seasons of Jeopardy, from Season 1 through Season 35, what are the most common calendar years referenced in an answer?

Results: The top year was 1996. The decade of the ’90s was the mostly commonly referenced overall.

24% of all Jeopardy answers contained a year, with 1% of those being 1996.

Spikes on the graphs are seen at years ending in 0; many clues reference years by the decade or century only.
Top 10 most mentioned years
years count
1996 1,087
1999 1,024
1997 1,023
1980 999
2000 994
1960 975
1995 961
1990 906
1998 891
1970 868

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Historical Context

Frequency of Years Referenced